


I'm Only What I See Sometimes

by sunsmasher



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 08:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsmasher/pseuds/sunsmasher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terezi searches for a reason. Rose doesn't have it but she knows how to play along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Only What I See Sometimes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anxiousAnarchist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousAnarchist/gifts).



They drift.

\--

Rose finds her on the floor of the corridor, the heat of their bodies leached out by the steel, and she’s drawing butts on Karkat’s door. It’s not the first time Karkat’s door has been so honored, nor, by a long shot, will it ever be the last, but there’s lethargy in Terezi’s strokes, a slow weight in her wrist, so this one time Rose crouches by her side and traces her lines. They look like butts. A lot of butts. Terezi stays quiet. 

Rose fumbles for a piece of chalk at her side, unwilling to look away from Karkat’s door lest she break this odd peace, and begins shading in the asscracks. Terezi, dead eyes still affixed to the crude red curve of a glute, says, “Don’t forget the dimples.”

Rose allows herself a small smile, and chalks in two soft dots. 

They crouch a while, and don’t say much more.

\--

“What do you see, when you look ahead?”

Dave is never exactly silent. He appears incapable of letting two minutes pass by without at least humming a few low chords to himself, commentating of the state of the meteor without need for a reply. But he’s been quieter than usual, more inward, and Rose starts just slightly at his question.

He leans casually against the wingback chair at the center of the room, very casually watching her water the few plants that have survived two years on the meteor. Very casually not touching his glasses or muttering to himself and gripping two fingers in his cape, as is his way when he asks questions like this. Rose sets her watering can down among the monitors and watches him watch her.

“Are you asking for yourself, or for another? I’m not in the habit of prophesying by proxy.”

Dave shifts, one foot to the next, and holds onto casual by the bloodless tips of his fingers. She can see in him the seeds Terezi’s planted. She wishes, sometimes, that she couldn’t. It’s a bit disheartening. 

“It’s been a long couple of years, you know?” Dave catches her eye through the sunglasses, and that’s how she knows—for certain—he’s not asking for himself. Dave never lacks bravery on behalf of others. “Some of us are starting to get a little goddamn antsy.”

\--

The next time Rose stumbles upon Terezi, she’s starting to get the feeling that this is less than coincidental.

In the subbasement kitchen, Terezi twirls a thin vial of something or other between two fingers and sniffs at the open door of the fridge. When Rose peers over her shoulder, one hand resting at the low curve of her back, Terezi’s nose is maybe three inches from the bloody plate of mystery protein that’s constituted Kanaya’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner since Rose put a moratorium on neck-sucking. At least until the sudden-onset unconsciousness starts to wear off. 

The glass of the vial clinks against the fridge door. Rose leans over Terezi’s shoulder, a few pounds more pressure at her back, and says, “Coward.”

“Excuse me?” Terezi says, sniffing indignantly at Rose. Her hair is thin and oily against her skull in the weak light of the fridge. 

“You heard me.” Rose shrugs, leaning back against the counter when Terezi shakes her off. “I happen to know you’ve never hesitated in dosing Kanaya’s food with whatever chemical it is that makes her sparkle like Troll Robert Pattison in the sun. She was secreting herself away in dim rooms for weeks at a time, back a few months ago. I can’t imagine it’s gotten any less entertaining since then, or her threats of violence any more convincing, so I must conclude that you’ve gone a bit chickenshit in the meanwhile. Turned candyass, if you will.”

Rose is hoping for some snarl, some grin, some flash of sharp teeth in thin lips, but she gets another weak shrug and a glance to the side. “It’s boring,” Terezi admits, like this is an expected development. Like a sudden desire to not provide all the more opportunity for further Troll Twilight jokes is the typical course of Terezi Pyrope action. Rose frowns. “More boring than it used to be, at least.”

Rose hmmms and kicks closed the fridge door. When Terezi doesn’t complain, Rose plucks the chemicals from between her fingers and pockets the vial away. “Come on,” she says, taking Terezi by the hand. The troll looks surprised, but at least not perturbed. Their fingers twine together without much thought. “She’s sure to be far more pressed if we put it in her shampoo.”

\--

Kanaya’s hair shines like abalone in the sun, and Rose runs her fingers through it with a perpetually self-satisfied grin. Kanaya, very inured and very much not entertained, flicks off the lights before she lets Rose straddle her thighs and press into her lips. Rose makes a disappointed noise. Kanaya studiously ignores her.

“Terezi wants to know what will happen,” Kanaya mentions, between kisses. They lean together against the wingback chair, and Rose continues to make noises, more inquiring now, into the cool skin of her neck. “I am sure she did not intend me to mention her name in this nonsense,” she continues, running her fingers over Rose’s hip, skirting under the waistline, “But I am disinclined to be kind, and she is being morose. Tell her something bracing. Kiss her if you must. I haven’t seen her smile lately, and it is honestly creeping me out.”

Rose nods but doesn’t pull away from her throat.

\--

The next time, which Rose has decided will be the last time, Terezi sits on an AC block on the roof, staring at some spot on the ground where at least one friend surely died—there’s been too many for Rose to know which. She doesn’t look up when Rose stands before her. To remedy this Rose seats herself on her lap like a queen on parade and kisses Terezi with far too much tongue. 

“I don’t know what will happen,” Rose says once Terezi’s got her breath back. Terezi’s eyes are wide behind her glasses but her hands are steady on Rose’s hips, the tips of her claws pinching just slightly at the skin. Not expected, then, but still maybe planned for. “Paradox space is cruel to seers.” 

She kisses the corner of Terezi’s mouth, the thin point of a tooth.

“I haven’t seen very far at all, and no doubt no farther than you.”

She kisses the bridge of her nose, just missing her glasses.

“Fates are as tangled as minds out here in the void. We’re both blind.”

She kisses her on the lips again, properly, with an acceptable amount of tongue. Terezi returns it, hungry and maybe only slightly disappointed. Rose can’t imagine Terezi was stupid enough to think Rose would have all the answers, but hope is unkind and hard to shed. Terezi’s claws dig into the flesh of her hips and Rose lets her, pressing two hands against Terezi’s face to hold her still while she bites, without much venom, at the troll’s dark bottom lip.

“We can survive like this,” Rose whispers, “We don’t have to do anything else, we can just survive.” Terezi moans, agreement muddled with appreciation for the way Rose grinds into her lap. “It’s shitty and I hate it, but we can survive, and we’ll be no less clever in the end for having been blind and stupid now.”

Terezi nods into her collarbone, breathless against her skin, and Rose rests her chin between her horns. One hand tightens in Terezi’s coarse hair. 

“Come find us,” Rose says. “We can help you forget. Kanaya and Dave and maybe even Karkat, if you stop drawing butts on his door. They can make it all tolerable for a few minutes at a time. They have for me.”

Terezi nods again, still huffing into Rose’s cowl, still clinging at her hips, and they sit for a while. Rose watching the stars die overhead, Terezi watching very little at all.

The meteor, bearing man and troll through the void and into the world, drifts.


End file.
